Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a control method therefor, and a computer-readable storage medium storing a program for implementing the control method.
Description of the Related Art
For software updating, there is generally known a method that automatically updates software on at regular time intervals against the background of a demand to keep software up to date.
For office machines as well, the function and service of regular updating have become common, but to this, there is the background of a demand to update software during a period for which an office machine is not in use, not during a period for which an office machine is used as well as the background of a demand to keep software up to date.
On the other hand, in software updating, target software is downloaded, and after that, the software is updated, but a time required for downloading largely depends on a communication environment, and hence this time cannot be predicted.
Thus, there is known a technique that, in order to update software with intended timing, sets a download time and an upload time separately and downloads software in advance before uploading software.
Windows (registered trademark) Update is generally known as the technique of downloading and uploading software separately. In Windows (registered trademark) Update, a downloading method can be selected from automatic downloading and manual downloading, and in the case of automatic downloading, target software is downloaded in the background in advance, and the software is updated with different timing.
There may be cases where a need to perform an urgent or additional update (hereafter referred to as an “additional update”) of software arises in addition to a regular update of software. Examples of the cases include a case where software such as troubleshooting firmware or research firmware is updated. This updating is urgent unlike normal regular updating.
In relation to additional updating, there has been known a technique according to which, in a case where a plurality of users shares a plurality of computers, and each computer is executing jobs beyond the number of computers assigned to each user (job limit), when a job is input from any other user, the jobs being in execution beyond the job limit are suspended and queued (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2007-179100).
However, according to the conventional regular update technique, for example, when a need to perform an additional update arises, the additional update is performed in timing with a next regular update.
Specifically, in a case where it is configured such that in regular updating, software is downloaded on Monday and updated on Friday, when a need to perform an additional update arises between Monday and Friday, only software for regular updating which has already been downloaded on Monday is to be updated on Friday, and hence the additional update has to wait until Friday next week on which a next regular update is scheduled.
On the other hand, an additional update may be performed with desired timing by canceling a regular update setting and manually downloading software for the additional update, but in this case, a regular update setting should be configured again.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2007-179100 describes a technique that, when a need to execute a job arises during execution of another job, suspends and copies the job being executed and queues it in a later stage. The input of the other job may be regarded as an update of the job being in execution, but this publication mentions neither the relation between the jobs nor execution of the suspended job.
In Windows (registered trademark) Update, when a need to update a plurality of modules arises, modules to be updated are accumulated in an order in which the modules occurred. Moreover, these updates are not performed unless a user approves execution thereof, and hence whether or not the accumulated modules will be updated is unknown.